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Just to let you know that Andrew will be at the JALT International Conference in Shizuoka Japan from Friday the 23rd to Sunday the 25th November. If you have any questions about getting your own website, contact us so we can arrange a meeting. If you love coffee, he can spot you one. Also, if you know of anyone who is going to the JALT International Conference, let them know that Andrew will be there, and you may be eligible for Affiliate rewards (discounts or credits on your next fees, details still being hashed out), if they signup.

Also, we are working on a set of custom responsive HTML pages that can be used as landing pages to support your own blog or other website options. Also, new custom packages tailored to you, not for a mass market where other companies sell something to you and expect you to do all the work, but packages we do the work for YOU. We are aiming to get these ready by the JALT Conference. For current members, we’ll be happy to provide you with a free landing page if you wish.

What does a “responsive HTML page” mean? It means that the page changes shape and reorganises content based on the size of the user’s screen. So, your website will still work well if viewed on a full sized computer monitor, to a tablet computer, to smartphone screen. Thus providing good user experiences regardless of the device they use. See TestSpace.Me and TravelPhotos.Asia for current experimental examples of these.

Important notice to all HelloSpace.Me members. Scheduled maintenance on our servers is scheduled for 21st Nov, from 9am to about 3pm Swiss time (about 5pm to 11pm Tokyo time). All websites will be offline for this time, so we suggest that you inform all your users immediately about this interruption. The return to normal service will depend on how well work can be done, and if they put back online sooner, they will. We apologise for the interruption, but assure you it means that service we provide will have ensured reliability and longevity.

Why in Swiss time? The servers are in Switzerland, and maintained by a company on our behalf. We chose Switzerland because they have very strong data protection and privacy protection laws, which benefits you and your users.

How to set up your own website to support your students and career

Workshop Rm 404 Sunday 2:00 pm – 3:10 pmAbstract: Having a professional web presence is now common for teachers and academics overseas. These provide access to handouts, downloadable files, updates, and to display an online résumé. Setting up and maintaining a personal website is not difficult. This workshop will demonstrate WordPress basics including installing and updating, creating and editing posts, pages, and more. No coding skills are assumed. A free HTML5 index page will be available to attendees.

Downloads:

Please get these before the presentation begins

Download and install a free html code editing program, if you don’t already have one try Brackets.io.

Free basic home page: JALTCALL2018_index.html. (right-click, “Save link as…”. To edit, open the download folder, right click on the file, “Open with Brackets” or other editing program).

If you already have a WordPress site, download the WordPress iOS or Android app.

Andrew will be at the Japan Association of Language Teachers Computer Assisted Language Learning (special interest group; JALTCALL) conference this weekend (8th to 10th June), details: https://conference2018.jaltcall.org/. This year, it will be held at the Nagoya Dome-Mae Campus of Meijo University in Nagoya. Andrew will give a presentation on Sunday afternoon (details below). Please tell everyone you know that attendees will get a 45% discount coupon for their own webspace (for the lifetime of their account, upgradeable, new signups only). Also, feel free to find and ask him questions; and if the presentation can’t be attended, don’t worry, the discount code is available for anyone who asks at the event.

Presentation details:How to set up your own website to support your students and career
Workshop Rm 404 Sunday 2:00 pm – 3:10 pmAbstract: Having a professional web presence is now common for teachers and academics overseas. These provide access to handouts, downloadable files, updates, and to display an online résumé. Setting up and maintaining a personal website is not difficult. This workshop will demonstrate WordPress basics including installing and updating, creating and editing posts, pages, and more. No coding skills are assumed. A free HTML5 index page will be available to attendees.

Other news
Also, Andrew will be attending the JALT International conference in November this year, but not presenting this topic (sadly), but he will be available to answer your questions, and give a little in-person help with your website.

It’s almost time for many people to update their subscriptions with us. We now offer credit card payment options with the secure and reliable company, Stripe. PayPal is still offered for bank and credit card debits.

Reminder, if you want to earn a bit of money or credit on the side, join the affiliate programme, where you can earn for every new signup you help with. You’ll get your own personal affiliate link to help track and credit your referals.

Currently we’re in “Web 2.0”, but transitioning to 3.0. What does that mean? I’ll give you a super quick history lesson. The first version of the internet contained static (boring) pages. Basically, they were placeholders until web gurus, marketers, and admin could figure out what to do. The first websites were basically static billboards. Companies like Coca Cola needed to claim their domain, so that they could retain control of their company image. Some guy even bought madona.com, and the real Madona had to take him to court, which set a precedent on ownership rights.

When interaction capabilities were beginning to be built into web experiences with platforms like PHPBB, Friendster, MySpace, etc, this became known as “Web 2.0” as interaction became a distinct evolution from the billboard-like experiences we had before. Of course, because there’s things to do and hold our attention, new independent websites like YouTube, the early Twitter and FaceBook exploded in popularity (YouTube was eventually bought by Google).

So, that is the internet we’ve experienced up until this year. For a few years now, people like me (Andrew) has expressed serious concerns about privacy, and our rights to own our data (see bibliography at the bottom of this article). These were ignored. Basically, people ignore or remain naive to an issue until we or our friends are hurt, then we hear or tell everyone around us about it, and then change our behaviour. With revelations that the US intelligence community has been vacuuming up our data as it passes through US territory, the constant leak of passwords and private information from Yahoo, and now Facebook (via Cambridge Analytica), and the missuse and abuse of trust, we’re now on the verge of changing the internet again.

So, what will Web 3.0 look like?

We’ve already started evolving into that. You’ve seen vestiges of it already in place. The fact that you’re reading this is apart of Web 3.0 already. Let me explain.

The new internet will be about security, privacy, and human rights; both in support and opposition to it. Security, privacy, and human rights in the digital realm is the new activists battle ground. In China, we see the government demanding to snoop and spy on their citizens. Encryption and VPNs are now banned in China, except where it would interrupt international commerce and trade. In the US we see election candidates wanting to snoop and spy on citizens, and use that information to influence your thinking. In Europe and Switzerland, we see that snooping and spying on citizens are outlawed, except in cases approved by the court (with a search warrant like process) to allow for criminal investigation. The worst that can happen with your personal data is:

1. Governments will use it to falsely accuse you of crimes and punish you. We see this already happening to human rights advocates in Vietnam and China, and against minority groups in the US.

2. Abused by employees of the government to monitor people within their own families or neighborhoods. Also employers abuse their access and privilege to spy on employees, which has had serious consequences already.

3. Accessed by criminals to steal your personal data. Identity theft is a very common digital crime. Criminals can impersonate you, and take out credit cards and loans in your name. They then wrack up a debit of which you are responsible for, and it destroys the credit rating of Americans, which is particularly harmful to them. This type of crime is difficult for the police to investigate as it is often committed internationally, and because your own personal computer security is so bad, the police can’t even determine how the criminals got your data, so beginning an investigation is difficult.

What you can do?

Here are the tools and features of Web 3.0:

SSL certificates. Basic SSL certificates are available to all our customers for free. These are the green padlocks you see in the address bar of your browser. The web address should start with “https” not “http”; the ‘s’ indicates a secure and encrypted connection. That means, if you’re using public wifi, criminals cannot see your login username or password, but they can if you didn’t use an SSL connection.

FireFox or Brave. These are web browsers that are so much more secure than Microsoft Explorer or Edge. Set these to “Never remember browsing history”, or “Clear browsing data after closing”, and never store passwords.

For secure email use Gmail or protonmail.com (Yahoo often gets hacked, so never use it). Just know that Gmail is owned by Google, and so any data you have there, is accessible by Google (and their national government).

Use a VPN like PureVPN or similar. A VPN hides your geographical location, and encrypts your data, so no-one can snoop on your communications. Never use a “free” VPN. They make money from selling your data. Always pay for a VPN, because those companies make money from you, not from selling your data.

For cloud and online file storage, don’t use DropBox, it is not secure. Use Tresorit. Tresorit has never been hacked, and is the most secure system we know. Tresorit also synchronises your files between computers, office network, or just your only computer and cloud. If your house is ever burgled or burnt down, you haven’t lost your important files.

Don’t use Google for searches. Google also vacuums up your data, information, interests, search history, everything. They can match it to you via your ip address whether your signed in or not. Use Duckduckgo.com instead. They do not store your data, and they redirect your searches to a variety of search engines, and so you get a wider variety of responses anyway, and your searches are anonymised. That means, that health problem you think you have, you won’t see ads for treatments appearing on every website you visit. Fun Freaky fact: Amazon knows if a woman is pregnant before she does, just by analysing her searches, and comparing it to historical data of women who have bought baby items.

For your own website, of course use us, HelloSpace.Me. Our servers are expertly maintained, and are physically located in Switzerland. That means your data is protected under Swiss Privacy laws, and under Swiss Data Protection laws. Which means, only a judge in a criminal investigation can allow access to our servers, but only to a specific persons account. So far, we’ve never received such a request; if we do, we will seek legal advice before permitting investigators access. Conversely, US intelligence already has unfettered access to US webhosting companies anyway, which makes us the best option. Finally, we keep your data to ourselves, and we only collect the vital data we need so that you can maintain the essential functions of your account with us. We do not over-collect (get data we don’t need), and we do not share or sell it to anyone. There are some services where this is necessary, such as your domain registration, and any additional features you purchase for your website that are provided by third-party sellers.

Never over-share your information. Avoid publicising your identifying data like your date of birth, place of birth, mother’s maiden name, your preferred bank, and such. Don’t engage in/with political messages whilst using your real name. Use a pseudonym (which were commonly used in Web 1.0 and early 2.0) with a VPN when you’re engaging in political or social activism.

Yes, it is possible. In fact, it’s even possible to import your Tumblr (among others, see just below) to your new WordPress. Word of caution, importing things will always be like moving house, a dinner plate will get broken, a shoe will get lost; most of all things imported to the new website or new account will be fine, but there will always be something not quite hooked up, but still there. For a nominal fee, we can perform this service for you, see WordPress Transfer & Setup; otherwise, you can follow these steps below yourself.

When you move to us, follow these steps:

1. Do a complete backup of your old website. We recommend downloading everything from your public_html folder using an FTP program like Filezila or similar. Especially download your …blog/wp-content/uploads/…

> Click on the image to see larger

An FTP program downloading the folders and files from a websiteUse an FTP program to download your website contents

2. Export your WordPress to an .xml file (or similar); store it in three safe places (1. on your computer; 2. on a USB memory stick kept in a safe place; 3. in the cloud on Tresorit or DropBox)

WordPress Export

3. Keep the old webhosting account open for as long as possible (at least a month) so you can access any forgotten files.

4. Unlock your domain (it’s a security feature to prevent others from stealing it). Be sure to lock it again when you have it re-established with us.

Transferring your Domain from your Old WebhostTransferring Domain to Us

7. It can take 7 to 14 days for the transfer to complete (we’ve seen it take more than 21 days; strangely it’s a manual process)

8. While waiting, setup a new “Home Page” with Site Publisher, to act as a landing page, or copy and paste your existing .html site into your new public_html folder in your cPanel File Manager (details in your email you received from us). Use this page to link to your subdomains and web apps like your blog, social media, and more.

Create a simple one-page homepage with Site Publisher 1Create a simple one-page homepage with Site Publisher 2

9. Once the domain transfer is complete, log into your cPanel (yourwebsite.com:2083), go to Softaculous, and install WordPress.

10. Advice, use the same Username and Password for your ‘new’ WordPress installation as before on your old webhost.

11. Important step: import all the photos and uploads from the old WordPress. These go into …/blog/wp-content/uploads/… You may have a lot of folders here. It’s much, much easier to use an FTP program like Filezila, which can upload the whole “Uploads” folder for you. In one of your emails from us, there is information on your FTP username, password, and address.

12. After putting all the Uploads in place, go to your WordPress Dashboard, go to Tools, go to import, install the WordPress import tool, run WordPress importer, and upload your .xml file from your old site. Everything should work fine (except for one or two unavoidable glitches). You may need to reinstall the theme you used before.

WordPress Importer

If there are upload file size problems

You may have a problem with upload file size. First, in cPanel, go to Search and lookup phpini and use the Multi PHP INI Manager to change the maximum upload file size from 2 to 4 or 8mb. Second, and only if editing the phpini file doesn’t work, edit the .htaccess file (as shown in the images below). In cPanel, go to File Manager, go to Settings (top right), turn on Show Hidden Files, and press OK. Go to .htaccess file, and either change the max upload from 2 to 4 or 8mb or add the code “php_value upload_max_filesize 4M” precisely (without the quotation marks; highlight, copy & paste if you’re unsure).

How to edit the .htaccess fileHow to edit the .htaccess file 2

If you have any problems, please contact us. Alternatively, we can perform the WordPress importing service for you (see WordPress Transfer & Setup). Either send us your .xml file or give us your old account login and WordPress login and we can manage the rest for you (we have our own supply of headache tablets).

Yes, you can earn money from your website. Simply join HelloSpace.Me at https://hellospace.me/host/index.php New members will need check their email to verify your email address. Sign into your account (again).

Affiliates programme

In your account go to the Affiliates tab, and activate. You will get a unique link you can use.

You can earn 30% for each paying customer who qualifies and pays. That is a HUGE commission! You can use this credit to pay your next webhosting bill, or simply cashout via PayPal (Payoneer may eventually be possible).

How to use your affiliate link:

Create an ifttt.com account, and set up a monthly automated Tweet or FaceBook post with your link

How to claim

Step 1: Domain

First you need a domain (aka “URL” or “web address”). Our web addresses are competitively priced. Search for your perfect web address here. Also, see here for what “TLDs” (like .com .us or .net) we offer.

Step 2: Choose your web space plan

To use your 50% discount, choose either the Premium, WordPress, or Lite Plans, or the Diamond Package*. Most people choose the Lite Plan with Rapid SSL Certificate (for that green padlock security). Compare web hosting plans here.

Step 3: Claim & pay

You will be guided through the checkout process, where you can be offered other options. At the Review & Checkout stage (pictured) is where you enter to the coupon code: BLKFRDY2017 to get the 50% off for your web space. Currently, we advertise in US dollars, we also support prices in Australian dollars, Japanese yen, and South Korean won. All payments via PayPal will be converted to Australian dollars.

The final stage of the checkout process

Scroll down to see this:

Review & Checkout: Enter coupon code here, and press “Validate Code”

Then click on the friendly green Checkout button, where PayPal will securely process the payment for us. We do not see or store your credit card or other banking details. Afterwards, you will receive a bunch of emails. Importantly, in one or some of the emails you will need to click on “Verify” for security reasons. Read the emails, and follow the rest of the website setup process explained here.

Step 4: Verify

Make sure you read all the emails you get regarding the signup process. Some emails are directly from us, and some are from the domain registrar agency we use. Make sure you click on the “verify” links, so for security reasons, we can be sure we are contacting you, the true owner.

* The Diamond Package is specially for low-tech people. We purchase the domain on your behalf, manually setup a WordPress website, manually setup an email address for you, and give it all to you.

Recently, it was discovered by security researchers that almost every single WiFi is vulnerable to breach. Basically, Key Re-installation Attack (KRACK) is possible for a hacker to act as ‘man in the middle’ by spoofing a local WiFi hub, so all your WiFi traffic will go through his (or her) computer, before going onto the real WiFi hub. The affected WiFi hubs use the WPA2 security protocol.

Normally, you should be protected by using https (the green padlock SSL certificates) on websites. SSL certificates should encrypt your username and password, making them invisible, but the KRACK vulnerability removes this protection.

Microsoft has already released a patch on their Windows 8 and 10 computers. If you don’t have automatic updates turned on, do it now. Google has announced that Android devices won’t be updated until the 6th November. Android users are advised to turn off wifi until the update is provided. Various other Linux devices will be updated in the near future (check your specific vendor). It is unknown if and how Apple iOS and Mac products are affected; Apple has not released specific information.

In the mean time, it is prudent to avoid using WiFi until you are sure your device has had this patch provided. Regarding your home and office WiFi router, check with your vendor for patches and updates. It is possible that using a Virtual Private Network (VPN) will keep your data and traffic encrypted, and probably protected. There are many VPNs, and these are available on mobile devices as well. Otherwise, absolutely avoid public WiFi until you see specific information stating it is protected against KRACK. After all, it is in the public space where man-in-the-middle attacks work best.